Tag Archives: facebook

If you have an e-commerce website, then SSL is mandatory for safely processing credit cards. But even if you aren’t processing payments, you should still seriously consider secure HTTP (or HTTPS), especially now that I’m going to show you how to set it up quickly, for free. Let’s get started.
What Is SSL And Why Should I Care? In short, SSL is the “S” in HTTPS. It adds a layer of encryption to HTTP that ensures that the recipient is actually who they claim to be and that only authorized recipients can decrypt the message to see its contents.

But some of the juiciest takeaways come from presentations about A/B tests that thought leaders are running, and how unexpected changes can yield big results.

… However, these aren’t always the kind of insights that will move the needle for your business. Without context — without your own data sets — these types of “takeaways” are really just opinions.

Telling your colleagues, “So-and-so changed their button copy to increase conversions, and I think we should do the same!” just won’t cut it anymore. As Orbit co-founder Andy Crestodina put it:

Never bring an opinion to a data fight. Because the highest-paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) always wins… unless you have data.

Many of the talks at day one of the Call to Action Conference broke down processes and tips for being a more responsible data-driven marketer: Google Analytics reports you can run and templates for building a tracking plan.

Juicy. Here’s a taste.

We’ve become comfortably numb

Morgan Brown, COO of Inman News, thinks that marketers have become far too comfortably numb with the little data they have access to:

Even if you use Google Analytics, you’re still missing out on a large part of the picture.

Clicks, visitors and time on page provide you some insights, but if you can’t see your customer from the moment they touch your company — from the beginning to the end of the lifecycle — you’re flying blind. But whose job is it to dig into the data to ensure your team isn’t flying blind? Andy says it’s on everyone:

That said, it doesn’t hurt to build a bomb-ass team to manage your data and growth. Morgan advises against hiring “another marketer.” Instead, bolster your growth team with individuals who live numbers — people who treat new customer acquisitions (and customer churn) with the same diligence as accounts receivables/payables.

Eventually, machines will tell us what’s important

As advancements in machine learning technology accelerate, we’re approaching an era where we won’t need to be so hands-on with data.

Machines will identify opportunities and provide testing recommendations for marketers, massively increasing the scale and impact of conversion optimization.

The future of marketing and conversion rate optimization, according to Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner, is in megavariate testing — mass split tests hypothesized and deployed by machines. CTAs will automatically be positioned to where they’re most likely to be clicked. Videos will be placed for optimal interactions.

Imagine a Slack bot that sends you a message with an A/B test recommendation — just type “yes” to switch the test live. That’s the future.

But…

We’re not there yet, so start hoarding your data

According to Andy, fewer than 30% of small businesses are using analytics — and those who are proactive about collecting data will have the competitive advantage. Morgan urged attendees to track all activity happening on their websites:

Stuff it into a data warehouse and let it sit there. It’ll at least be there when you need it.

If you don’t have the bandwidth to set up that kind of tracking, Morgan suggests you should at the very least be documenting important user flows — end-to-end tracking of your customer’s lifecycle:

Don’t settle for anything less than complete waterfalls.

Don’t have the time or know-how to set that kind of stuff up? Tough, says Morgan. Bribe an engineer colleague or friend. (… Or, uh, steal Morgan’s Tracking Plan Blueprint here.)

Develop a culture of experimentation

Tracking and collecting data isn’t enough. Here’s how Andy put it:

When you look at your analytics dashboard in the morning, the line goes up and you smile. Or the line goes down and you frown. And then you go back to checking your email. But you need to take action.

Morgan agreed that you’ve got to just do it. He’s found that all rapidly growing companies (think Uber, Airbnb and Facebook) have one main thing in common: a culture of experimentation and aggressive optimization.

Rapid experimentation — and the accelerated learning that comes with it — is key to fast growth.

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. —Patton @morganb#CTAConf <— I need to memorize this! — Annie Cushing (@AnnieCushing) June 20, 2016

Behind every conversion

While it’s tempting to get swept up in data and numbers, Andre Morys (founder of Web Arts AG) reminds us that every conversion is the result of user motivation.

Yes, data can tell us a lot in terms of user behaviour, but user motivation is harder to distil down to pure numbers. It relates to an individual’s implicit goals (owning a BMW for status) versus their explicit goals (owning a vehicle for transportation needs).

In order to tap into these implicit goals, Andre suggests asking yourself, “Who is your customer? What real problem are you solving?”

Morgan opts for a slightly different route, instead using surveys — such as pricing surveys, net promoter score surveys and customer satisfaction surveys — to get a pulse on his customers and prospects.

Whatever the route you take, it’s important to not lose sight of the people behind the clicks.

Because at the end of the day, Morys reminds us, conversions are really just people.

When designing a graphical user interface, there is always an open question: How do we automate testing for it? And how do we make sure the website layout stays responsive and displays correctly on all kinds of devices with various resolutions? Add to this the complications arising from dynamic content, requirements for internationalization and localization, and it becomes a real challenge.

In this article, I will guide you through an interesting new layout testing technique. Using Galen Framework, I will provide a detailed tutorial for writing meaningful generalized layout tests, which can be executed in any browser and on any device and at the same time used as a single source of truth in your design documentation.

Are you passionate about something? Do you have a secret project? Not something that will change the world (though who knows?), but will definitely change you? Do you have a friend who complements your skills? Has anyone recently asked you for help with their project? Do you just have a digital dream, or is there also a plan to make it come true?
Every professional has something in common. It’s called the comfort zone.

Do you remember when you could run a “fast” WordPress website with just an Apache server and PHP? Yeah, those were the days! Things were a lot less complicated back then.
Now, everything has to load lightning-fast! Visitors don’t have the same expectations about loading times as they used to. A slow website can have serious implications for you or your client.
Further Reading on SmashingMag: Proper WordPress Filesystem Permissions And Ownerships Moving A WordPress Website Without Hassle How To Develop WordPress Locally With MAMP Do-It-Yourself Caching Methods With WordPress Consequently, the WordPress server stack has had to evolve over the years to keep up with this need for speed.

Varnish Cache is an open source HTTP accelerator that is used for speeding up the content delivery of the world’s top content-heavy dynamic websites. However, the performance or speed a newcomer to Varnish Cache can expect from its deployment can be quite nebulous.

This is true for users at both extremes of the spectrum: from those who play with its source code to create more complex features to those who set up Varnish Cache using the default settings.

Facebook isn’t making life easy on anyone right now. All the family drama and political posts aside, checking Facebook statistics can make you feel like a 90’s emo kid. So. Much. Angst. A lot of business owners are wrestling with declining post engagement and reach that seems to shrink week-by-week, unable to understand the cause of the problem. Facebook is as prolific as Google with updates to their machine learning algorithm. Understanding that algorithm and the more than 100,000 ranking factors is next to impossible. So how do you reach more fans with your updates? What kind of content do…

This week reminded me again of how refreshing attending a conference can be. As mentioned, I was at beyondtellerrand and, apart from meeting new people, I mostly enjoyed the inspiration I got from listening to the great talks.
I realized how I might be able to solve a few things that had led to me being unhappy with my work in the past. My trying-to-change-everything-at-once strategy always failed, and seeing that some people just change small things and succeed, I recognized that this is what I want to try over the next months.

Robots are great for cleaning the floor and are perfect for exploring the moon. They’re just not that great at customer support. The last thing your customers want is another “We received your message” email or “Thank you for holding” recording. Robots only succeed in making customers feel like another number, a dubious accomplishment for your team. They’re the opposite of the personal touch that effective support is supposed to be all about.

There are over 2 million iOS apps and almost as many Android apps in the growing app economy. However, for every Flappy Bird app that gets lucky and goes viral, there are thousands of apps that take time and hard work to launch and persistence to maintain, grow and avoid the app graveyard. While we typically hear about overnight success stories, this article explores the more typical experience of an appreneur, or app entrepreneur.